CHAIRMAN’S VIEW

There has been lots of exciting activity at the Club this month. Our women’s first and second boats took on the Oxford Boat Race crews and gave very good accounts of themselves. The second boat were very close in their first piece and came out on top in the second. I managed to get footage of the first crew who looked excellent.

The winter training is paying off with very high quality rowing evident. As I write the WEHoRR results are in. Congratulations to LRC 1 on winning Senior Club and going up two places on last year and to the Masters A who won their category. Many of the other crews advanced on their 2024 finish positions.

For those who like historic rowing clips I can recommend Mostyn Field’s compilation of films going back many decades. I was searching for LRC crews in this archive but am yet to find much good stuff of our club, although Tony Fox, former LRC member winning the Wingfields, was great. Be warned though, this site can take up (waste) many hours of your valuable time. Furthermore, I was then led to clips of rugby internationals including The British Lions, another ‘rabbit hole’, for me anyway!

This month we have the AGM when we will present the accounts for the Club year ended July 2024 and also update members on the plans for replacing the balcony. We are always mindful of our relationship with local residents and we are shortly holding a presentation at the Club to explain the proposed development to our neighbours. On the subject of neighbours, we get the occasional complaint about noise so please be mindful of this, especially in the early mornings.

Your committee regularly considers succession planning and before we know it July will be here when we elect Club Officers. Although I find it hard to believe, my three year tenure as Chairman will end this year. It has flown by and has been a rich and interesting experience, enabling me to meet many more members than I otherwise would. The Finance Sub-Committee is also seeking new members. If anyone is interested in these roles or any other, please do let me know at chairman@londonrc.org.uk

Good luck to our crews in the forthcoming Head of the River and Masters Head.

Bill Baker
Chairman, London Rowing Club

CAPTAIN’S REPORT

Spring finally appears to be rearing its head after what feels like a long cold winter. Once again the Club has been a buzz with activity in the thralls of head season with fixtures, races and our members training amongst numerous visiting crews on an ever-busy Tideway.

Our women’s senior squad has been particularly busy with fixtures against Oxford University Blue Boat and Orisis on Sunday 2 March. LRC Women’s 2V raced Orisis twice, losing the first piece by a third of a length but coming back to win the second piece by two and a half lengths. Meanwhile, LRC Women’s 1V raced two pieces against the Blue Boat, losing the first piece by two lengths before the LRC ladies closed the gap and held onto the Blue Boat in the second piece, with the end verdict being one length for OUBC.

One week later, the women of LRC senior squad took to the championship course for Women’s Head of the River Race (WeHoRR). Often cited as Europe’s largest female sporting event, the sun shone down on the Tideway for the race which rather fittingly took place on International Women’s Day. What better way to mark the occasion than for LRC to enter four women’s eights into the race from the senior squad, and a fifth eight from our women’s masters. All crews raced exceptionally well with huge improvements on previous years. In particular, our W8+ 1V placed 13 overall and brought home the Senior Club Pennant – a great success for the club and another plaque for the wall! Overall, the other crews placed as follows: 2V in 22nd, 3V in 68th, W4 in 69th and MasW in 69th place. For the 2V and 3V this was a major improvement from placing 29th and 98th respectively in 2024.

These results really show what a great change there has been in women’s rowing at LRC. Our female membership and their rowing performances have come along by leaps and bounds in the last five years and it is great to see members from across the Club celebrate, cherish and nurture competition amongst the women’s squad. I and many others at the Club are very proud of our women’s squad and look forward to seeing what they have in store for us.

A huge thanks to everyone who turned out to support the Club for WeHoRR and to those who volunteered on the day, be it around the Club or launch driving or umpiring.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in renovating the Members Room recently. After over a quarter of a century, the room has received some much needed TLC and is looking fantastic now as a result. I really appreciate all the planning, work and coordinating that has gone onto this and look forward for the room being put to good use by members and for events.

As we now turn to the Head of the River Race on Saturday, 22nd March, followed swiftly by Veterans Head of the River on Sunday, 23rd March, I look forward to seeing what results our men’s squad and masters pull through. I wish all our crews the best of luck and hope the sun shines down and the winds are calm on the day.

Rob Porter
Captain, London Rowing Club

MEN’S MASTERs REPORT

After the repeated build up, but last-minute cancellations of racing, the Men’s Masters have remained committed to heads racing at least once this season.

With the cancellation of Molesey Vets Head, our Masters C8+ organised a 4k piece here on the tideway, ahead of the Dewar Shield fixture further up the river, as a replacement. It was an excellent opportunity to push ourselves ahead of the two remaining races (Hammersmith & Masters Head).

Luckily for us despite some increased river flow and potential sailing weather conditions, Hammersmith Head go/no-go did hang in the balance for a brief period of time, however thankfully the race went ahead.

Representing London Rowing Club in Masters B8+, C8+,and D8+, our men put in a strong performance, finishing with respectable results across the field. Despite all the categories being combined into a single event (the time penalties were harsh), everyone was happy with their respective results for our first 8s race.

Masters B8+ Bow to Cox: Jon Mac, Will Randall, Basil Amin, Rob Farthing, Matt Piechowicz, Jason Bowyer, Tom Stace, Adrian Turner, Henry Dunlop.

Our main event is ahead of us. We now focus our attention on the Masters Head of The River, where we have entered the following crews across the same categories:

Wishing all crews, across the entire non-squad section of our club, the very best of luck!

Jason Bowyer

WOMEN’S MASTERS REPORT

The head season is well and truly upon us, and the LRC Masters Women have been showing what they are made of. This past weekend, the Vet A crew competed at WEHORR, facing tough competition in bright, sunny weather that would have been perfect for rowing—if it weren't for the wind.

Cox: Julia Norton Stroke: Emily Walters, Saskia Gill, Angela Hitchens, Kirstyn Luton, Caroline Newbury, Emily Davenport, Alexandra Hammerberg Bow: Chloe Ramambason.

The crew fought hard, pushing through the course with determination and skill. Their efforts paid off as they finished first on raw time in the Masters category, a testament to their strength. Unfortunately, after the handicaps were applied, a Masters D crew claimed the victory, but the LRC Masters Women took it in their stride.

Now, with WEHORR behind them, the group is already looking ahead to the next challenge, the Masters Head. This event promises to be another exciting opportunity for the LRC Masters Women to showcase their drive.

Saskia Gill

IRREGULARS REPORT

The Eight’s training continues apace and with the Vets Head only nine days away excitement is mounting and bodies are being honed! Next week sees our training schedule slightly ease as we recharge our batteries for the big day.

Shouts must go out to all our subs that have filled seats during the course of our campaign – we have not actually had an outing with the full race crew yet – inevitably, as our training outings are on weekends, the likelihood of some missing is high.

Eight, Saturday 1st March training outing.

Anyhow, shouts out to our super sub Ronnie Maddox (no 7 in the photo ) who has actually subbed every outing so far, Lee Reilly, Henry Dunlop and even two Young Irregulars Anna Llommet and Uli Forster. We could not have done it without you guys so thank you.

Testament to the Club’s great spirit and willingness to help out when needed!!

As well as the eight, the Irregulars Sunday morning outings continue as usual

A meet up of Irregulars’ quads above St Paul’s.

Last Saturday saw another gym session from Hamzat – we moved on to some weight training and it was extremely useful to be shown how to use some of the equipment in our wonderful gym. All who attended really benefited from the session and certainly I for one will be utilising this section of the gym a bit more – if only as an alternative to the dreaded ergo!

Lastly, I just want to mention one of our members, Keith Swabey and his wife, are off to Ukraine in a couple of weeks to deliver an ambulance to help with the war effort. The very best of luck to the two of you and good on you.

Keith asks that if anyone would like make a donation to the charity in which he is involved or to find out ways in which they could help, you should email him at k.swabey@btinternet.com.

Eddie Markes

YOUNG IRREGULARS REPORT

This year has been a hive of activity for the Young Irregulars, with strong attendance at the events hosted by the Club (particularly the it’s Annual Dinner), fantastic sessions on the water (especially over the last two weeks) and several crews training and taking part in the upcoming Vets Head on 23rd March.

First, we welcome Caitriona who has joined our group in the last few months. We hope she has a great time on the water with us.

Our regular Saturday sessions have been a delight over the last few weeks after the turbulent and cold start to the year. We are regularly able to field three quads every Saturday morning, and we must say a big thank you to the dedication of our signed-off steers who have made it possible for us to do this.

During these sessions we have been progressing well as a collective due to our coached sessions with Coach Dave through our own funded pot, which has been a delight. We hope to continue these throughout the rest of the season, ahead of the summer regattas.

(Bow to stroke): Minna, Victoria, Marta and Helen.

On to racing, we have two crews entering the Vets Head this year, a Women's Quad and a Mixed Quad, both of which have been ramping up their training over the last few weeks! We wish them the best of luck in the race, and potentially to bring home a win for the Club!

Women's Crew: Camille, Liz, Heather and Rachel (Bow to Stroke).

Mixed Quad (with a substitute for the session): Silvana, Victoria, Tom and Elena.

Tom Downes

NON-SQUAD LRC ROWING

Since reporting to you all in the February edition of The London Roar (that article can be found on the Club’s website if you need to refresh your memory), I have continued my review of LRC’s Masters rowing.

One or two of you got in touch after reading the survey report referred to in my article, asking if we could expand the report to provide a little more information about the breakdown of the numbers and ages of those who had responded to the survey. This has been done and a further section has also been added setting out in tabular form the development of the Masters structure over the last five years.

The final section of the report shows the results of the survey in tabular form. In case it isn’t clear, the horizontal axis is ‘years old’ and the vertical axis is ‘number of days training a week’.

I remain most grateful to the 160 members who completed the survey. Of them, 31 chose the fourth option in the survey (no plans to row at the moment), which left 129 active rowers. I find it hard to believe that we had one hundred percent response to the survey so my guess is that there may well now be at least 150 members who want to row in the Masters section of the Club.

I am working on the understanding that as well as having a top level squad (men’s and women’s) aiming to win regularly at HRR and HWR, LRC wants to have one of the foremost Masters sections (including 20 to 27 year old non-squad rowers) in the country.

LRC started Masters rowing much earlier than most GB clubs with the creation of the Irregulars in the mid sixties. Over the last few years the number of non-squad rowers in the Club has grown enormously.

Managing Masters groups is very different from managing an elite squad.

Elite squads are comprised of very focussed, extremely fit and technically competent men and women rowers, with a narrow age range - probably not more than about ten years.

Masters groups are much more complicated as they involve men and women, with a huge range of age (20 to 80 plus), varying rowing abilities and different aspirations. Some want to train and race almost as much as those in the Club’s Elite Squad, some want to train about three days a week and race a number of times a year and others want to row recreationally (generally about one day a week) and either not race at all or race very occasionally.

To have a happy and successful Master’s rowing programme, all non-squad rowers’ aspirations need to be catered for. Failure to do this will lead to disappointed and frustrated members.

The recent survey has come up with helpful information about the non-squad rowers’ aspirations.

The first steps that need taking;

1. To establish what groups there should be and who should head them up.

Possible three groups:

A. ELITE MASTERS
Open to all non-squad rowers.
Sweep and sculling.
High racing aspirations - several heads and several regattas a year.
Men and women who want to train at least five days a week - two outings and at least three off water erg/gym/cycling/running sessions.
The survey indicated 37 people fall into this category of whom 30 are men and 8 women.

B. CLUB MASTERS.
Open to all non-squad rowers.
Sweep and scullers.
With aspirations to race a number of times a year - heads and regattas.
Men and women who want to train at least three times a week - one or two outings and one/two erg/gym/cycling/running sessions.
The survey indicated 37 people in this category of whom 25 are men and 12 women.

C. IRREGULARS.
Open to all non-squad rowers.
Sweep and scullers.
With no aspiration to race or an aspiration to take part in the occasional head and/or regatta.
The survey indicated 55 people in this category of whom 31 are men and 24 women.
This group may need to be divided into two sections, Young Irregulars for people under about 50 and Irregulars for people over about 50.
The survey indicated 10 men and 14 women would fall into the Young Irregulars category and 21 men and 10 women in the Irregulars category.

We also need to think about the Club’s single scullers. The way forward may be an active WhatsApp group either independent of the other groups or a sub-group within the Club Masters.

2. I have also been considering the timing of getting the groups up and running. I have concluded that with the head season now in full flow and the regatta season following closely behind, it would be too disruptive to adjust our existing groups at the moment and that the logical time to introduce change is in time for the beginning of the next rowing year.

This means that the existing groups of the men’s elite Masters (headed up by Jason Bowyer), the women’s elite Masters (headed up by Saskia Gill), the Young Irregulars (headed up by Kathleen Curran) and the Irregulars (headed up by Eddie Markes) should continue as they now are until the end of this rowing year.

That, I believe, leaves quite a lot of non-squad rowers who are currently not rowing in one of the existing groups. I am keen to establish who fall into this category as I would like to see if we can co-ordinate them for the coming weeks and then allocate them to one of the appropriate groups when they come into existence at the beginning of next season.

If you are not in one of the existing groups, please email me at miles.preston@milespreston.co.uk

Miles Preston

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

See more detail for these events, visit our Calendar of Events…

THAMES ROW CHALLENGE – COMPLETED!

I am overjoyed to share news of the Travelodge Thames Rowing Challenge crew who successfully completed their objective of rowing 60k over two days between LRC and Richmond Lock! The distance was achieved by doing laps between the two locations.

This would have stretched even seasoned rowers and it was no mean feat for this completely novice crew to manage it after only seven coaching sessions with our TopRow team. The oarsome foursome supplemented the water work with punishing ergo sessions at home and reached a level of fitness to get the job done.

Check out their journey from start to finish on Instagram

I was privileged to coach the crew and enjoyed steering them on Day 1. I must extend a big thank you to Henry Tyler who was there to steer on Day 2 and got them over the line.

The crew are well on the way to reaching their target of £8000 in aid of the British Heart Foundation. If you would like to help them get there, please donate through their JustGiving page

Since the challenge we have learned that our 3 seat, Alan Harfield, has been inspired to join his local rowing club in Ely, Cambridgeshire – having picked up an oar he has found that he is not quite ready to put it down. Please remember if you know people who are thinking of taking up rowing just send them to TopRow!

Day 1, (L-R) Ryan Alcock, Alan Harfield, Bob Silver (cox), Luke Jones, Paul Madden.

Day 1, Crew going afloat nice and early.

Day 2, Crew with their cox, Henry Tyrer.

Day 2, Crew celebrating with the British Heart Foundation Corporate Partnerships Manager, Sian Dickson.

Bob Silver

NEW MEMBERS

We would like to welcome the following new members to the Club:

Thomas Lynch
Bryan Williams

We hope you will enjoy being part of the London Rowing Club community and will help us build an ever happier and more successful club.

We are always pleased to have more members so, if you know of anyone who you think might like to join the Club, please either let us know or encourage them to get in touch with us themselves.

There is information on becoming a member on our website or you can email the Club’s Membership Secretary:

Andrew Boyle
Honorary Secretary, London Rowing Club

PHIL CLAPP - OUR DOUBLE WORLD RECORD HOLDER

Many congratulations to Phil Clapp, who recently added the 1,000m record to his 500m world record erg time. His new record is an amazing 2:38.2, which equates to an average 500m split time of 1:19.1.

I asked Phil how rowers can learn to love rather than dread the erg. He explained that the erg is the easiest form of training because there are no environmental factors to consider. He said it was important to set realistic targets for each session and to complete the same session regularly to track progress. He said there would be bad days, but that it was important to complete the work and move on. To avoid boredom, Phil listens to podcasts during longer sessions and energising music during high intensity work. When it comes to tests and records, Phil said it was necessary to have a clear reason why the objective must be achieved. The mind is the biggest limitation.

Phil has a deep understanding of the role of lactic acid (or lactate) in energy generation. It is the link between the aerobic (oxidative) and anaerobic (glycolytic) metabolisms. Muscle cells use carbohydrates anaerobically for energy, producing lactate as a byproduct, but then burn the lactate with oxygen to create far more energy. The first process (the glycolytic pathway) dominates during normal exertion with lactate seeping out of the muscle cells into the blood to be used elsewhere. During intense exercise, the second ramps up to remove the rapidly accumulating lactate oxidatively and create more energy. Endurance training enables the body to use lactic acid in a positive way.

Phil explained that for the shorter distances it was necessary to modify technique and use the upper torso more. He was not a fan of a long draw as he thought there would be an offsetting disadvantage elsewhere in the stroke. A priority for Phil is avoiding back strain. He often does longer sessions on the ski erg for variation. Simple weight training can help. Some loading of squats and deadlifts can protect the back and strengthen the core and torso. In spite of his appearance, Phil said that building muscle mass was not so important.

Phil has conducted a great deal of research into sprint training and has studied approaches of other sports such as cycling. He has structured his learning into an online course called Speed Beyond Limits, which can be accessed via this link. Phil said that the course was particularly popular among Masters rowers, perhaps because of their racing distance of 1,000m. Phil noted the 1,500 course at the next Olympics. He expected that this would turn into a sprint as crews would go off fast and try to hang on.

Phil represented GB at the Junior World Championships in 2007 and won the Fawley Challenge Cup at HRR. He took up the erg to keep fit for his career as a professional yachtsman. He is now trialling for the GB beach sprints team for the LA Olympics. He said he was working hard on his running, which is a key component of this format. We wish him all the best and hope that we will celebrate his success on the water as well as in the gym. In the meantime, do check out Phil’s course or say hello if you see him around the club. You won’t miss him!

Here is a link to Phil’s world record row, which begins with an introduction to his course.

View on YouTube

Andrew Boyle

REPORTING SAFETY INCIDENTS

All members are reminded that if you are involved in or witness a water safety incident, you are required to report it using the following email address – safety@londonrc.org.uk

The Club will file any necessary reports on your behalf with British Rowing and the PLA. Members should not submit reports directly to either body.

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

My thanks to everyone who has contributed to this edition of the London Roar. If you have an idea for an article or would be interested in submitting a piece for inclusion in a future edition, please email me on miles.preston@londonrc.org.uk

Please do not submit an article without first liaising with me.

Miles Preston
Editor of The London Roar